COURT BLOCKS TRADING OF GINNIE MAE OPTIONS

By WINSTON WILLIAMS, Special to the New York Times

Published: March 26, 1982

CHICAGO, March 25—
The Chicago Board Options Exchange suffered a legal blow today in its bid to become the pioneer exchange in the trading of options on debt instruments.

In a 100-page decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled, 2 to 1, that the Securities and Exchange Commission overstepped its statutory authority last year when it granted the C.B.O.E. permission to trade options on the debt certificates of the Government National Mortgage Association, or Ginnie Mae. The options have not yet been traded on the exchange.

''We hold that pending further action by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, all trading of options on Ginnie Maes is prohibited,'' said the majority opinion, written by Judge Walter J. Cummings.

Jurisdictional Dispute

Today's decision reopens the long and bitter jurisdictional disagreement between the S.E.C. and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The agencies argued for many months over which of the two would regulate the trading of options on debt instruments and options on futures contracts.

In December the agencies reached an agreement that gave the S.E.C. jurisdiction over options on securities, including debt securities, while the C.F.T.C. got responsibility for regulating options on commodities, including financial futures.

The majority opinion, written by Judge Cummings, held that an option that originates on the exchange floor, as opposed to those issued by corporations - such as stocks and bonds -does not fit the definition of a ''security'' and, consequently, it does not fall within the jurisdiction of the S.E.C. Further Delays Cited

The court said that Federal law precluded the S.E.C. from granting its permission to the C.B.O.E. to trade options on Ginnie Maes. Lawyers familiar with the case said that the options exchange would have to submit its proposal for trading Ginnie Mae options to the C.F.T.C. for approval. That route would take four more weeks, at least, before trading could begin.

In his 40-page dissenting opinion, Judge Richard B. Cudahy disputed the majority's contention that the options written on the exchange floor are not securities.

''In reaching the extreme, if not bizarre, conclusion that the S.E.C. is without power to regulate options trading in what is incontestably a security, the majority seems to have returned all the parties to square one in this unseemly regulatory debacle,'' Judge Cudahy said.

Today's decision makes it almost certain that Congress will have to solve the dispute. A Senate subcommitte began marking up a bill this afternoon that would extend the life of the C.F.T.C. for four more years. The commodities and securities industries have asked that the bill clarify the jurisdictional lines of the two agencies.

The suit against the C.B.O.E. was filed by the Chicago Board of Trade before the agreement between the two agencies was reached. Robert K. Wilmouth, president of the C.B.O.T., said after the decision: ''The court action upholds our original position. We are pleased with this correct and sound decision.'' Other Suits Pending

The Chicago Board of Trade, the nation's largest futures exchange, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange recently filed a similar suit, asking the same court to bar the C.B.O.E., along with the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange, from trading options on Treasury securities. Those suits, unaffected by today's ruling, are still pending.

The S.E.C. has been more receptive than the C.F.T.C. to the innovations in options trading, and the exchanges that are regulated by the C.F.T.C. have sued to keep the stock and option exchanges from gaining a commanding lead in these new markets.

Options give the holder the right, upon payment of a premium, to buy or sell a security or commodity at a fixed price by a certain date. A futures contract, on the other hand, is a commitment to buy or sell a commodity at a fixed price on a given date.

Options on futures are not traded now but the growth of financial futures has spurred considerable interest. The C.F.T.C. is in the initial stages of its ''pilot'' program for options on commodities. Exchanges have been granted permission to trade options on a variety of futures contracts, including gold, heating oil, Treasury bonds, sugar and bank certificates of deposit.